1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to lubricant compositions. More particularly, it relates to a group of N-hydrocarbylhydrocarbylene-diamine amide carboxylates and to their use in lubricants and fuels as multipurpose additives, i.e., as friction reducers, antioxidants and fuel consumption reducers. They are also expected to exhibit antirust and detergent characteristics in engines when used in lubricants and in carburetors and intake manifolds when used in gasolines. The invention is especially concerned with using the compositions in connection with internal combustion engines.
2. Discussion of Related Art
As those skilled in this art know, additives impart special properties to lubricants and fuels. They may give these new properties or they may enhance properties already present. One property all lubricants have in common is the reduction of friction between materials in contact. Nonetheless, the art constantly seeks new materials to enhance such friction properties.
A lubricant, when used without additives in an internal combustion engine, will not only reduce friction, but in the process will also reduce consumption of the fuel required to run it. When oils appeared to be inexhaustable, and were cheap, minimum attention was given to developing additives for the specific purpose of increasing functional properties. Instead, most of the advances in this area came as a result of additives being placed in lubricants for other purposes. However, recent events have spurred research programs designed specifically to find materials capable of enhancing the ability of a lubricant to reduce friction.
We have in our work found that there is not necessarily a correlation between friction reducing properties of an additive and its ability correspondingly to further reduce fuel consumption in an engine. That is, one cannot, with certainty, predict from the ability of an additive to reduce friction that it will also act to decrease fuel consumption. Thus, even though the use of amides in lubricants is known (see U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,822, for example, which discloses lubricants containing the product of reaction between an aminopyridine and oleic acid), no art teaches or suggests that the products of this invention are useful for the purposes disclosed herein.